The #metoo campaign shows how many women see themselves as worthless

Actress Alyssa Milano began the #metoo trend actress when she asked her followers to speak up about sexual abuse in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegationsCredit:
Adela Loconte/WireImage

It’s been a depressing week for women. Another one. The #metoo campaign on social media, whereby female users shared their stories of sexual harassment, caught my attention for the sheer weight of responses.

Well, I thought confidently, I’ve never been a victim of sexual harassment. I’m one of the lucky ones. But then I started reading strangers’ stories – of lewd bosses making unwanted advances; of groping incidents on public transport; of feeling threatened by groups of men catcalling in the street – and I realised that I’d experienced all of that. Obviously I had. Wasn’t that simply part and parcel of being a woman?

It’s an age thing, I think. I’m 38 and part of the sandwich generation of feminists. We consider ourselves lucky to be standing on the shoulders of those pioneering women who fought the big legal battles against gender discrimination: for suffrage, for equal pay (ha!) and for...